Matt Mottel: The Image Is a Seed

Wednesday, June 17th, at 8pm, ISSUE Project Room presents the premiere of three audiovisual compositions by 2010 AIR Matt Mottel. These works bring Mottel’s distinct artistic sensibility into dialogue with formative figures in his life and in New York’s avant-garde, tracing a lineage that is both deeply personal and central to ISSUE’s history.

The compositions reimagine the artwork and ethos of ISSUE founder Suzanne Fiol, who personally selected Mottel for residency in 2010. Blending archival material, live performance, and digital media, Mottel channels personal history into a layered, time-bending exploration of sound, image, and inheritance. Drawing on Syeus Mottel’s photography of 1960s–70s political and cultural movements, alongside the interdisciplinary practices of his “scene parents,” Yuko Otomo and Steve Dalachinsky, these works map an intergenerational network of influence that extends from downtown avant-garde histories to the present moment.